


Wham, Bam, Thank You, Man

by Lucy_Claire



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Post-Civil War (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 13:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8534326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucy_Claire/pseuds/Lucy_Claire
Summary: Steve’s 98th – 32nd, Tony, 32nd – birthday takes a hilarious turn as the Avengers rent out a strip club to host their drunken shenanigans for 4th of July. Featuring: Steve’s embarrassment  - Clint’s pole-dancing routine - Asgardian ale - Bucky popping out of a cake - and music, lots of cheesy music!Happy birthday indeed





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Scarlet_Fire_1918](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet_Fire_1918/gifts).



> For [**Brianna**](https://scarlet-fire1918.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> I had so much fun writing this!
> 
>  
> 
> _(Songs in this fic are linked in the underlined words)_

 

Steve really shouldn’t let Tony plan his, or anyone else’s, birthday parties.

If it were up to him, or Thor, or, hell, even the ever-nosy Natasha, it would not have ended up being half this embarrassing. Fucking hell, even Loki found dragging Captain America to a high-end strip club a bit much.

What was Loki doing here? Apparently this wasn’t actually Loki. Not entirely. What was sitting on the other side of Steve’s table in the club, feet on Thor’s empty chair, was a kid of no more than sixteen with short hair, parted bangs, wearing a horned gold coronet and fingerless gloves as he scrolled through a prototype Starkphone. Teen Loki, as they have taken to calling this…avatar? This version? This incarnation? of Loki, was the rebounded soul of Loki after he recently died. Time on Asgard was very weird and beyond Steve’s grasp of physics, since the last time the Avengers had met up with Thor, Loki had died, come back as a child, grown into a pre-teen, worked on the good side for a few months then rapidly aged into a teenager.

Tony had bought out the entire Wonderlust club for Avengers-only use on Fourth of July of all nights and invited all their friends. Avengers, significant others, agents from SHIELD and caterers. Caterers in a strip club, if that wasn’t Tony in a nutshell, Steve didn’t know what was.

“Where is everybody?” Steve asked Teen Loki.

Loki stopped scrolling through Instagram and chewed on a black-painted thumbnail. “Preparing your surprise. I must say it’s a very boring one.”

“Would you do better?” Steve dared.

While not as unhinged as the Adult Loki Steve met in the Battle of New York, Teen Loki still had that unnerving, mischievous gleam in his eye. “Is that a challenge, captain?”

“Yeah, why not.”

At that, half of the Avengers returned to their big table at the front and the music started up. Natasha fell into the chair next to his, Wanda folded her legs and hovered behind him,  Banner excused himself, Sam sidled up to his side with a large piña colada full of cherries and handed him a similar glass, the Agents from SHIELD sat in another table, already half-drunk and hooting, and the Vision parked himself in the corner.

Steve shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Where are Tony and Clint?”

With a deafening rise in bass from the speakers, a techno dance mix of _Happy Birthday_ blasted into the room as the multi-colored club lights swung back and forth on stage. Tony came stomping out on the catwalk, wearing a slinky, glittery white shirt that was half-open to show his arc reactor, a blue jacket and red high-waisted pants, looking like a patriotic nightmare from a cheesy ‘70s movie as he sang along “Happy birthday to yooooou! Happy birthday to yooooou!” and pumped a glowing staff as he led a line of men and women in shiny outfits up to the table.

Steve wanted to die. He also wanted to tape all this and put it on YouTube.

To the thumping beat, Tony started to do a lot of off-beat dance moves that proved just how hammered he was, nearly stumping off a few times. Reaching his limit, Steve caught Tony by the jacket and yanked him down. “Please stop.”

“Noooo, don’t stop,” Natasha moaned, batting Steve’s arm, already tipsy. “This is the hardest I’ve laughed in weeks.”

“Yeah, lighten up, Cap!” Tony winked cheekily. Steve held back the urge to head-butt him and break his stupid tinted shades.

Steve released his grip, dropping Tony, and the music changed, something straight out of Natasha’s recommended list — [Toxic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOZuxwVk7TU) by Britney Spears. Three poles rose out from the stage, two on the sides, one in the catwalk. In a purple suit, Clint swung down the pole.

Natasha wolf-whistled and Teen Loki made a bunch of whooping sounds, encouraging Clint to strike several ridiculous poses that could only count as seductive in a cartoon. Leaning on the pole, holding it and sticking up one leg while bending back with impressive flexibility and posing with his ass out to the crowd, shaking it in the direction of the SHIELD table. FitzSimmons — Steve didn’t know which was which — rose up and each laid a smack on one cheek. 

Once the chorus hit, Clint started rubbing up against the pole to a choreographed dance with all the other dancers, spinning around, mouthing the words and bending himself in a lot of positions that made Wanda pull her shirt up over her face and Natasha and Tony bang the tables and holler like animals. They were crossing into _Red Hot Riding Hood_ territory.

Hell, Steve was starting to get a bit around when Clint held up onto the pole and flipped upside down with his legs in the air. Jesus Christ, what the fuck was that?

The song ended with Clint landing backwards on his feet and tearing off his jacket as a drum beat burst through the speakers, which each slam Clint and the dancers thrust in a direction, taking off jackets, unbuttoning vests and shirts and mouthing along to the excited chants of [“WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU, MAN! GET INSIDE MY FUCKING GOLD TRANS AM!”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC_9pzwtYX8)

“Kesha, really?” Natasha laughed at Tony.

Tony, dancing in his seat, brushed her off. “Kesha’s fun, unlike Depeche Mode or  Muse or whatever weird music you Europeans are into.”

Steve picked up his piña colada and siphoned half of it in one go. “How is Thor missing this?”

Once the chorus hit, Clint had kicked off his shoes, socks and vest and was waving his belt over his head as he stepped down and dropped himself into Steve’s lap. “Happy birthday, Steve. I’m really sorry about this, but I lost a bet.”

Steve felt his ears burning. He swallowed and said, “Do what you gotta do.”

What he had to do was was turn around and give Steve a vigorous lap dance right in time with the song going _“_ _Come on, climb into my golden cockpit! Love you ‘till you’re seeing stars and stripes! Burning rubber on the southern highway! Gonna take you for a freedom ride!”_

Natasha laughed so hard her face had turned as red as her hair, Tony snorted into his drink and splashed it up onto his shades, Sam was giving him the dignity of looking the other way and Wanda had exiled herself to the corner with Vision.

Steve wanted to die so hard that he too would get reincarnated as Loki.

He gripped the sides of his chair and bit his lip to keep himself still and quiet — Client really knew what he was doing and he just had to wonder how this factored into the whole ‘being raised in a circus’ part.

The song ended and Clint left his lap for Natasha’s, straddling her and grinding while she kept a mostly straight face, leering at him approvingly. Steve had to wonder how many times she had gotten a private show.

Tony reached over and tucked a twenty-dollar bill into the inside of Clint’s underwear.

“Is it over?” Steve whined, tempted to unbutton his pants to let it breathe. 

“Nope! Still got two songs left,” Tony said cheerily, taking off his shades.

“Fuckinhateyou.”

“Oh, come on, Cap. It’s your birthday and 4th of July, enjoy the cheap jokes and hot people. Speaking of hot people, where’s Thor?” Tony looked around and remembered Teen Loki. “Hey, where’s your brother?”

“While we’re at it, where’s Bucky?” added Steve. 

Loki glanced up from his phone, smirk deepening. “Oh, they’ll be here right about….”

The blasting the familiar horns of Tom Jones’s [You Can Leave Your Hat On](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gxOlrWoNVg)broke the silence and Thor in all his long-haired, red-caped glory burst onto the stage, holding an open flask of Asgardian ale and wearing an Uncle Sam hat. “Happy birthday to America and it’s captain!”

“Oh, Jesus,” Steve breathed, sliding down in his chair. “A lap dance from him would crush my kneecaps.”

Clint got back on stage and him and Thor started undressing to _You Can Leave Your Hat On_ and Steve’s eyes glued themselves’ to Thor’s biceps for a good minute as he drunkenly swayed to the music, stripping with no hint of hesitation, shame or embarrassment or even Clint’s forced confidence. Then again, this was the same guy who declared Tuesdays at the Tower _Naked Tuesdays_ and walked around like a giant muscley nudist.

Not that any of them seemed to mind.

Sipping on Thor’s flask, Steve loosened up as the guys and the background dancers stripped down to their underwear, getting into more of a laughing mood, Natasha and Tony pounding on his back. Sam had long joined Wanda and Vision in the corner of Secondhand Embarrassment. 

Clint was down to his boxer-briefs patterned with white and purple targets and yellow arrows and Thor was in nothing but his leather pants and had taken off his cape, bunched it from both ends and shone the back of his neck with it, pulling it side to side as he shook his hips and flexed his muscles.

Thor came over, draped his cape over Steve’s neck and pulled him into a slam of a rough kiss, his beard scraping Steve’s skin, earning eager hoots. He couldn’t help smiling.

“Happy — how old are you in Midgardian years?”

“Too old for any of this shit,” Steve joked.

Thor patted his cheek and kissed the side of his head. “As am I, but there’s no use in giving into feeling old.”

“Guess you’re right.”

Tony blew a party horn near Steve’s ear. “Alright! Time to blow up the candles.”

“Blow up?”

“Yes, blow up.”

Rolling his eyes, Steve turned to face the pretty lackluster cake and the melting 98 candle. 

 _“Happy Birthday to Steve,”_ the whole table sang.

“Cha-cha-cha,” the SHIELD table intoned.

_“Happy Birthday to Steve!”_

“Cha-cha-cha!” joined Tony, dancing, shaking invisible maracas on both sides as he twisted.

_“Happy Birthday to Steeeeeeve! Happy Birthday to youuuuuu!”_

“CHA-CHA-CHA!” the whole place erupted.

“Make a wish!” Natasha cheered.

“Make a good wish!” Sam intoned, from behind his chair now, ruffling Steve’s hair.

“Where’s Bucky?” Steve asked again.

“Just make your damned wish, captain,” said Loki.

Steve had come out of the ice aged twenty-seven, it’s been five years since. While Tony, followed by everyone else, joking or not, liked to insist Steve was ninety-eight, he didn’t live those extra seventy-one years. He wasn’t even all that there the year he turned thirty. He barely gave much thought to turning thirty-one and now…now…

He was in a fucking strip club bought out by Tony with a one-tier cake with a big, lit, red, white and blue 98 candle staring him in the face.

“Eh…not that I don’t appreciate it, and don’t take it the wrong way, but fuck you guys,” Steve groaned. “The more jokes I get about being old the more I think you’re seriously overcompensating for the grey in your hair, Tony.”

“MAKE A WISH!” they all screamed at him.

Closing his eyes, Steve wished for them all to remain intact, alive and together for the foreseeable future and blew out the candles. Sparks erupted from the candle wicks and the cake grew upwards, spreading along the table and sprouting several huge tiers with red and blue icing and yellow stars.

The candle on top turned to a big red **32** , relit and sparking.

Steve eyed Wanda, stunned. She turned her hands up, confused, so they all turned their attention to Loki, who just wiggled his fingers at him cheekily. “It is time for gifts, no?”

“My gift is another cake?”

Loki shrugged and went back to texting.

Steve stepped up, on foot on the chair, the other on the table and peered down at everyone, who watched intently. Breathing deep, he first appreciated seeing his actual age, thirty-two — thirty-two years old — and blew out the candles again.

The _Happy Birthday_ club dance megamix played again and the strobe lights swing around, coloring the room, and someone threw open the lid of the top tier of the giant cake and popped out, glancing around, confused.

“Bucky?” Steve stepped up on the table, thoroughly stunned. 

A deeply confused Bucky Barnes rose half out of Steve’s birthday cake. “Uhh, surprise?”

Bucky’s hair had been combed and tied up, his face shaved and rubbed in a tempting cologne and dressed in a suit matching the dark blue of his eyes. He was as clean, calm and gorgeous as Steve remembered all those years before the war and before their deep-freeze trip to the future.

“What are you doing in my cake?”

Bucky broke their long stare, ears and cheeks reddening. “I’ll be honest, pal, I have no idea where I am or how I got here.”

Loki snickered loudly. “You’re welcome.”

“Looks the cake is the box and you’re the first gift, Weiner Soldier,” Sam laughed.

Steve felt his face burning and Bucky ducked back into the cake. Green glittery light spiraled around the cake and suddenly Bucky was out on the table, nose-to-nose with Steve.

“Hey,” said Steve.

“Hey. It’s your birthday.”

“It is.”

Tony blew his party horn again and clapped along to “I hear fireworks! Everyone out!”

Steve hopped off the table and held out a hand, helping Bucky down. Out the corner of his eye he saw Teen Loki waggling his eyebrows at them. Steve threatened to punt him back to Asgard, loudly. He was still a bit drunk.

Out on the front of Wonderlust the Avengers and friends gathered to watch as the fleeting bursts of Independence Day fireworks lit up the night sky, arriving in a rising shot of light and ending in an explosion of colors, quickly fading into clouds of thin smoke.

Most areas around the club then started blasting the same song, one that made Wanda double-over in guffaws, Thor tap his foot along to the beat, Clint and Tony dance with party hats and Natasha actually cringe through her laughter.

_“Yeaaaaaaaah! It’s a party in the U-S-AAAAA!”_

“It’s different seeing them,” said Bucky. “The fireworks.”

Steve nodded, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. In Sam’s VA meetings they had discussed veteran reactions to the trailing whistles of rising fireworks and the boom of their bursts, mistaking them for missiles and bombs, which was something Sam had got a handle on, Tony needed to be super-drunk to forget and something that tightened Steve’s muscles.

“Pretty though,” said Steve.

“Very.”

“You know what else is pretty?” Steve asked him.

Bucky’s blush deepened. “What?”

“Me,” said Steve, earning a few laughs from the eavesdroppers. “Pretty patient with all you assholes.”

The corners of Bucky’s eyes crinkled as he smiled, the sight making Steve’s heartbeat flutter. 

“Good on you for living another year, jackass,” Bucky said, shaking his hair out his short ponytail, letting it fall around his face, grazing his bottom lip with his teeth distractingly.

As the the fireworks boomed above them, flashing different colors down on them for fleeting seconds, Steve cupped Bucky’s jaw with his fingers, brushing stray hairs back as he thumbed his cheek, and leaned in to press their mouths together.

Whoops, hoots and catcalls broke out around them, moving them apart with bashful smiles. Bucky ducking his head and Steve rubbing the back of his neck. “Haven’t done that in a while.”

“Too long a while judging by the number on your cake, old man.”

“Bucky, you’re a year younger than me.”

His metal arm wrapped around Steve’s waist, pulling him closer. “Well, us thawed-out assholes need to stick together.”

A whistle cut through them, Coulson was pointing the sky as three different fireworks hit the sky one after the other, forming the outlined colors of Steve’s shield with the central star hitting the sky last like a bullseye.

Steve felt the warmth expended by the fireworks, the alcohol and his friends fill his chest and a big, true smile spread up his face, burning his facial muscles.

The light show ended and they were all herded back inside.

“Can we eat the cake now?” Steve asked.

“You can, but we’ve got one number left, so don’t start being gross and feed each other,” Natasha said, pinching his cheek.

Steve was made to sit down while his whole team rose up, dragging Bucky and Sam up to dance as a Latin number blared its high energy sax and beat through the room.

 _[“Upside inside out! Livin' la vida loca! She'll push and pull you down! Livin' la vida loca!”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p47fEXGabaY) _ accompanied everyone’s awful dancing, Wanda’s embarrassed and nervous clapping and Natasha and Clint sharing a pole, swinging and grinding down against, shimmying their hips down as they bent low.

Teen Loki galloped on last, caught the pole from the very top and did the most impressive swings and twists, Tony dealt out dollars at him like cards, Thor downed more of his Asgardian ale as he stepped around in place, shaking his hair around.

Bucky danced in the middle, coming up towards Steve, leading with his shoulders, snapping his fingers to the beat and sticking out his tongue teasingly.

He came close and bet to catch Steve by his tie and pull him so his mouth was on Steve’s ear. “What do you say you unwrap your present?”

“You’re forward all of the sudden.”

“What can I say, the thrill of being alive and all that,” Bucky laughed it off, taking Steve’s fingers and setting them on his buttons. “So?”

Steve ran his hands up his chest, feeling his hard muscles through the shirt. “Seems such a waste of a setting if I do it myself.”

Catching his drift, Bucky took Steve’s hand, pulling him up and after him to the back rooms. “How about I give you a private show?” 

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [**Tumblr**](http://lucyclairedelune.tumblr.com)!
> 
>  
> 
> Don't forget to comment! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧


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